Fulbright U.S. Student Program

Greetings from your friendly, neighborhood UW-Madison Fulbright Coordinator.

You are receiving this as someone who has initiated an application for the 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program (FUSP) through the UW-Madison.

This is the first of what will be a number of emails with hints, tips, reminders, and resources as we approach the campus (September 12, 2024, 10am CDT) and national (October 8, 2024, 4pm CDT) deadlines!

Let me start by saying, congratulations!! Getting that application started is the first step – not always an easy step – and I’m thrilled that each of you has chosen to start the process.

Second, keep working away at your application. It’s not a hard application but there’s a lot to it. And there is a lot of work to do to make a compelling, competitive application; especially in the written pieces (the short answers – abstract/summary, community engagement, and future plans – and more substantive statement of grant purpose and personal statement). You want your application to best reflect you, your preparation, the work that you do, and the work that you are proposing to do. That’s rarely communicated in a first draft. Of anything. So make sure you review, edit, review, rewrite, copy-edit, and review again!

To that end, I am happy to again be coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer review program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others to offer feedback and suggestions. We will connect one-to-one ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields).

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to, and we will begin partnering folks on a rolling basis!

Also remember that Fulbright provides an archive of recorded webinars that cover the full range of Fulbright US Student Program topics and are worth reviewing as work through the application: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/resources/recorded-webinars

There are a number of upcoming webinars this week as well:

Your Future with Fulbright: Global Pathways for Hispanic and Latinx Scholars
July 9, 2024 | 3pm-4pm CDT
register at: https://apply.iie.org/register/7.9.2024.FUSP.Future

Fulbright and Mobility International USA: Students with Disabilities
July 10, 2024 | 2pm-3pm CDT
register at: https://apply.iie.org/register/7.10.24.FUSP.FulbrightMobility

Finally, if you have questions, are still considering a range of possible awards, are looking to discuss options & next steps, seeking feedback on your application, want to brainstorm ideas, or just about anything else, I’m available to answer questions by email, chat on-and-one, and otherwise support your application any way I can. Email me or schedule a chat via Starfish (current & continuing students) or Calendly (all others).

Keep in touch, reach out with any questions, and let me know if you’d like to participate in our FUSP peer review program!

Time for another check-in, though this one is a bit later than planned. Apologies!

For those of you who just recently initiated your application: you are receiving this as someone who has initiated an application for the 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program (FUSP) through the UW-Madison.

I’d like to start with highlighting our UW-Madison Fulbright US Student Program (FUSP) webpage – https://fulbright.wisc.edu/fusp/ – and addressing an application component that, with deadlines creeping up, I’m getting asked about with some frequency. Please read along!!

Is there something on our FUSP webpage that you should be paying particular attention to? Well… if I said “please read through everything carefully, there are a number of things you should be taking on board” would you do it? I hope so! Because there are!

But the thing I really want you to spend some time with this week is the FUSP @ UW-Madison: Campus Instructions that are posted on the page as a PDF (and I hope now linked to from this email as well). There’s a lot of useful information in there about the FUSP program and application in general, the campus process, how to approach individual components of the application, and more. If you haven’t yet, give it a good look and read through – I don’t think you’ll be sorry for taking the few minutes needed to learn about or just remind yourself of some of the ins and outs of the application.

Okay, next!! Let’s take a minute to talk about letters. Letters of recommendation, affiliation, and language evaluations. Do they need to be in by the campus deadline or the national deadline?

Letters of recommendation, affiliation, and language evaluations all should be in by the campus deadline – 10am on Thursday, September 12, 2024. When you send the invitations through the online portal, those invitations will only note the national deadline (October 8). This is why communicating with letter writers is so very important. And why talking to them early in the process is equally important: you want to be able to accommodate letter writers’ own time commitments and limitations – and your need to get them solid draft statements to write from – while also respecting the campus deadlines and your own stress levels. When you ask for letters, I suggest you give letter writers a deadline of September 10, just in case they try to sneak things in last minute. Now, as we note time and again, the campus review is not about gatekeeping so your application will not be “marked down” if you are missing a letter (that’s just nothing that we do in the campus process) but it will give your reviewer less material to work with. Give them a full, well put-together application, so do everything you can to get all the materials in by the campus deadline of September 12!

Resources for this check-in?

We will be coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer review program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others to offer feedback and suggestions. We will connect ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields) to share drafts of their statements and short answers to offer feedback, suggestions, and insight one-on-one

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to, and we will begin partnering folks on a rolling basis!

Get in touch with me at uwfulbright@wisc.edu with the above information when you have your drafts ready to share and the time to read another’s work. We will partner folks on a rolling basis throughout the application cycle – so… this offer doesn’t expire!

Also, upcoming webinars to join (or watch once the recordings are posted) include:

Application Tips: Short Answers and Essays
https://apply.iie.org/register/7.25.24.FUSP.ShortAnswersEssays
July 25, 2024 | 2pm-3pm Eastern Time

Fulbright U.S. Student Program Overview: World Regions
https://apply.iie.org/register/8.1.24.FUSP.WorldRegions
August 1, 2024 | 4pm-5pm Eastern Time

Fulbright Alumni Voices: How to Pursue Graduate School Abroad
https://apply.iie.org/register/8.7.24.FUSP.AlumniVoices
August 7, 2024 | 5pm-6pm Eastern Time

Finally, if you have questions, are still considering a range of possible awards, are looking to discuss options & next steps, seeking feedback on your application, want to brainstorm ideas, or just about anything else, I’m available to answer questions by email, chat one-and-one, and otherwise support your application any way I can. Email me your questions or schedule a chat via Starfish (current & continuing students) or Calendly (all others). My calendar is wide open!

Hello again, everyone, friendly Fulbright Program Advisor checking-in again with all of you who have initiated an application for the 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program through UW-Madison.

This is our 3rd check-in. I’ll be posting this and our previous check-ins online later this week. This check-in will include 2 reminders, 1 resource, some guidance on the statements, and a teaser for next week’s check-in. Let’s get to it…

Reminder #1: Today is August 5th and Attachments A&B are due by 10am on September 5, 2024. That’s a month from now. If your September schedule is still in flux, if you’re waiting for classes or work schedules to get sorted, wait until those are in place to submit. But if you can complete them and return them… it’s low-hanging fruit worth picking! Whatever you do, don’t lose track of them; I do need the forms in by September 5 (exactly one week before the campus deadline).

Resources to remember: Keep in mind that we have project & personal statements (a key part of every FUSP application) of previous UW-Madison Fulbright US Student Program recipients available for review. If you’d like to take a look at them, just email me at uwfulbright@wisc.edu requesting access. Be sure to indicate what award type you are interested in seeing the statements for: ETA or Research/Study/Arts. Keep in mind that these are polished end products – so don’t read them and judge an early draft of yours against them! Also, I always suggest that folks have drafts of their own prepared prior to reviewing past statements just so you don’t risk being unduly influenced by someone else’s work. FUSP statements are distinctly individual – to the person and the work at hand.

Hint/tips: Most applicants struggle for space when it comes to getting everything they have to say within the confines of the page count limitations for the statement of grant purpose and personal statement. Space is precious. In meetings, I bang on about the need to edit, be concise, make sure that passages and sentences and examples support multiple strands of your argument, etc. But for those of you who might not have realized it, you can buy yourself a little extra space by simply adjusting the default line spacing in Word and Google Docs. In both instances, when you create a new document, it opens at an airy 1.15 line spacing, rather than the allowed (and more compact) single line spacing. Adjust the spacing for your document (see below) and you will buy yourself an extra 7 or 8 lines per page!

The other important thing to keep in mind is the formatting requirements for the statements. In early drafts you don’t need to be quite so worried about these considerations but as you start to edit your pieces and try to fit things to the page limits you need to make sure that you are using 12pt Times New Roman font in your statements, single line spacing, one-inch margins all around AND include the appropriate headers at the top of each page! All of these details – including how to format your headers – are in the appropriate section of the “Applicant Components” section on the Fulbright US Student Program website:

And the thing is, headers need to be in the body of the text and not tucked up into the actual document header. That means… if you’ve bought yourself 7 or 8 lines by adjusting your line spacing you are going to also give back 2 or 3 lines when you include your statement headers.

What formatting giveth, formatting taketh away. A little frustrating if you’re struggling for space but important; you don’t want to have your application knocked out of consideration on a technicality.

Reminder #2: Our peer partner program is on offer – and will be on offer throughout the application cycle – let me know if/when you want to participate!

We will be coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer partner program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others to offer feedback and suggestions. We will connect ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields) to share drafts of their statements and short answers to offer feedback, suggestions, and insight one-on-one.

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to, and we will begin partnering folks on a rolling basis!

Get in touch with me at uwfulbright@wisc.edu with the above information when you have your drafts ready to share and the time to read another’s work. We will partner folks on a rolling basis throughout the application cycle – so… this offer doesn’t expire!

And, as ever, if you have any other questions, want to chat about your application, need some clarification on programs, are unsure about parts of the process, anything… shoot me an email!

Next check-in teaser: we will have some hints and information about the short answer questions – abstract/summary, community engagement, and future plans – that everyone needs to address and many of you have already asked about. Look for that next Monday!

This is our 4th check-in and I’m pleased to say that all of our previous check-ins, including details and suggestions re: letters of reference, formatting hints, and the like are posted to our UW-Madison Fulbright US Student Program webpage – and this will be going up there as well. So if you missed any of the earlier ones because you are late to the party, or just want to review them (because they do have some useful info, after all), you can do so 24/7/365 at https://fulbright.wisc.edu/fusp/

We are officially one month away from the campus deadline – 10am CDT, Thursday, September 12, 2024 – so hopefully you are all feeling like you’re making good progress on your application. Now might be a good time to review where you are, if there are some more pressing needs than others, and make sure that your workflow for the next month will position you to be able to have the strongest possible application for the campus deadline!

To that end (in part), I’m going to be focused on some writing guidance for this check-in – both general and with specific regard to the short answer questions.

But first, one little housekeeping/logistics matter: I’ll be taking some vacation time August 15-19, so if you have any pressing questions, please get them to me ASAP. If it can wait until next week, no need to stress yourself!

On to the writing…

First off, make sure that you are as specific and concrete as possible in your statement of grant purpose and personal statements! It’s a fine line we walk in putting these things together, as, for example, an applicant submitting a chemistry proposal can’t afford to get too deep into the weeds on methodology as it risks being unduly obscure and squeezing out other important information, whereas not addressing methodology or being merely cursory risks not providing enough tangible detail so your readers struggle to understand the work that you’re doing.

Each of us, and each proposal, is going to address this challenge differently but what I’m suggesting is that you avoid the overly general and aspirational.

For example, if you are an ETA applicant, including in your statement of grant purpose that you strive to create a learning environment in the classroom where students feel comfortable making mistakes is … laudable but doesn’t really tell your readers anything substantive about you and your approach (plus, just about every other ETA applicant is saying the same thing). Instead, talk about a time when you helped a student you were tutoring, or a friend or colleague overcome their fear of making mistakes – how did you do it? What strategies were useful? How might you adapt them to a classroom setting? It’s the classic “show, don’t tell” mantra – and it helps streamline your writing as well grounds your statements in your own specific background and story as well as projecting into the Fulbright classroom you are applying to be a part of.

Similarly, if you are proposing a research/study/arts project and are planning to work in archives or with an eye to sharing outcomes with government ministries or community partners… be specific. Which archives? What collections within those archives? What do you know is available; what do you suspect but not know for sure is available? And how do you know it? Which are the ministries or partners? Have they expressed an interest in your work either from previous visits or in establishing your affiliation? All of these little threads that you weave into your statements provide substance and information to your readers about your depth of engagement around the issues and communities that you are seeking to work and live among for your Fulbright year.

And here’s the other – perhaps ultimate – check against whether your writing is doing enough to support your application and is specific & concrete enough: with space in your written statements & short answers at a premium, each substantive chunk needs to be working in support of your application. If you can take a chunk of text (e.g. a paragraph, 4 or 5 lines) out of any of your pieces and drop it into someone else’s and it would “work” just as well… it’s probably not doing the amount of work you want it to do, it’s probably not as specific to your application as you’d like it to be.

Now some thoughts on the short answer questions: summary/abstract, community engagement, and future plans.

I get a lot of questions about these pieces. They are very important so you want to craft these pieces well.

(1) The summary/abstract appears on the first page of the application, so it’s the very first thing written by you that evaluators will read (other than your name, selected country and award type). The summary/abstract should give a holistic overview of your application and your reasons for applying. It will also, in many ways, guide your readers through the reading of all the biographic, educational, & professional details you provide in your application. As such, you want it to act as something of a cover letter, signposting those portions of your application before your readers dive into the substantive statement of grant purpose. Avoid generic language and cliche, make a purposeful introduction of… answering those 4 key questions every application is answering: why this work, why this country, why you, and why now.

(2) The community engagement piece is your opportunity to discuss how you see yourself living and operating away from the Fulbright-specific work. Learning more about the communities you live and work among but also putting yourself in a position to be learned from by community members. You live a full, robust, many-faceted life here; what aspect/s of that do you see continuing while abroad, what new things are you excited to dive into, how will you connect? For some of you the proposed work and the community engagement may overlap – a little or a lot – for some, not at all. There is no right answer; imagine your life well-lived in-country, engaging with the community and culture that surrounds you, and that should do the trick!

(3) Lastly, next steps, post-Fulbright. Not just what you plan to do, but how does the Fulbright you will have just completed fit into those plans. What is it about the Fulbright time that will inform and launch you into your next steps? Do you have longer-term plans or goals that will be made more possible by your Fulbright year abroad? Your readers are going to want to see in the application the arc of your life and work, and how Fulbright is a connector between where you come from, where you are, and where you plan to be in the years ahead.

Something to keep in mind: there 3 short answers were added 5 or 6 years ago. But the instructions/leading questions for the statement of grant purpose (SoGP) haven’t been updated. You don’t need to repeat the above in your SoGP unless there is more to add.

As in all things, and as I bang on about in our many meetings, specificity and illustrative examples from your life are good things!! Use them. But also remember that numbers 2 & 3 are not contracts. A lot can happen in the year between submitting and getting the award, let alone over the course of the award year itself; and returning home after a year abroad. Be imaginative. Be thoughtful! Tell your story.

And the reminder:

We are coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer partner program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others to offer feedback and suggestions. We will connect ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields) to share drafts of their statements and short answers to offer feedback, suggestions, and insight one-on-one

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to.

Get in touch with me at uwfulbright@wisc.edu with the above information when you have your drafts ready to share and the time to read another’s work. We are partnering folks on a rolling basis throughout the application cycle – so… this offer doesn’t expire!

Keep hacking away at things and enjoy the process – you’re applying for a Fulbright year abroad. Never forget how exciting that is!!

Time for another check-in with those of you who have initiated applications for a 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program award through the UW-Madison.

As noted last week, all of our previous check-ins, including details and suggestions re: letters of reference, formatting hints, guidance on the short answers, and the like are posted to our UW-Madison Fulbright US Student Program webpage. So if you missed any of the earlier check-ins you can review them all 24/7/365 at https://fulbright.wisc.edu/fusp/ – good info in all (I hope) plus those of you new to the process can get caught up and review our campus instructions (and resources) to boot!

Speaking of instructions… get your Attachments A&B in when you can! Reminder: they’re due by 10am on September 5 but if you know your September schedule and can get them in early, why wait?

Hint/tip/application guidance is a little further down in the email. First things first… our first batch of peer reviewers have been connected and we’re looking to pair our next set this week. So if you’d like another set of eyes on your application, think about joining your colleagues:

We are coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer partner program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others for feedback and review. We will connect ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields) to share drafts of their statements and short answers to offer feedback, suggestions, and insights in how drafts read!

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to.

Get in touch with me at uwfulbright@wisc.edu with the above information when you have your drafts ready to share and the time to read another’s work. We are partnering folks on a rolling basis throughout the application cycle – so… this offer doesn’t expire!

And here’s a little something for you to consider as you’re working on not just your statements but your entire application…

Those of you who have met with me or sat in on one of our information sessions will likely have heard this before but it bears repeating:

Boiled down to the bare essentials, every FUSP applicant needs to answer 4 questions with – and throughout – their application: (1) why this work/project, (2) why this country, (3) why you, and (4) why now. Every piece of your application, every passage of your statements (long and short), ought to be strengthening the case you’re making in addressing one or more of these 4 points. Regardless of whether you are applying to teach English in Mongolia, pursue a graduate degree in Germany, or conduct research in Uruguay, you need to be answering those four calls.

Fulbright provides great guidance/leading questions for each award type noting the sorts of specific questions you ought to be addressing in the various application components for each award:

Study/research: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/applicants/application-components/academic
Arts: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/applicants/application-components/arts
English Teaching Assistant: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/applicants/application-components/eta

But all those specific questions that you are answering in your application should be directed at convincing the national screening committees and Fulbright country commissions that you are the person to pursue the proposed work, in the country you are applying to, at this point in your academic/professional/personal career!

Keep that in mind as you draft and edit. And be forward thinking; the work you are seeking Fulbright support for should not only make sense in terms of where you are coming from but where you hope to go post-Fulbright.

Hope this is useful as you reflect on and continue to work through your application. As ever, if you have questions or need any assistance, feel free to email me or set up a time to chat using either Starfish or Calendly.

And on we rumble through the application cycle for the 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program (FUSP) awards!!

A few brief observations in reviewing our current queue of UW-Madison FUSP applicants:

1. Fewer than a quarter of current applicants have registered any recommenders in the online application system (that means getting their names and email saved in the system). Now, I imagine most of you have been in touch with your recommenders but… we are less than 2 weeks from the campus deadline and it’s important that you give your recommenders time to complete the online form (ETA applicants) or load their letters (research/study/arts applicants) – and if your recommenders are faculty, they are gearing up for the academic year as well. Make sure you get/stay on top of your recommendations!! Bonus hint: the only date your recommenders see in the online notification system is the national deadline; make sure they are aware of the campus deadline!!
2. A little more than a half of you are showing as having “updated” your application in the last 2 months – meaning that you’ve actively added things, edited, or uploaded materials to your application. Is that a problem? Not necessarily. We all work differently and there’s no “right” way of working through a FUSP application. But do keep in mind that there’s more to the application than just the statement of grant purpose and personal statement. There are the little details of uploading correct transcripts, completing language self-evaluations (as appropriate), as well as recording and connecting recommenders and language evaluators, PLUS completing all the parts of the application itself where you are listing achievements, educational & employment background, extracurricular activities, travel, etc. It all counts; it’s all important – make sure that you leave enough time not only to complete the application but also to review it and check that it reads as you want it to and that you take advantage of all the space available to put forward the most compelling application possible!

To help you wrangle control over everything, Fulbright is hosting a webinar later this week that might be of interest:

Application Tips: A Comprehensive Applicant Checklist
Thursday, August 29, 2024 – 1:00pm to 2:00pm CDT

Want to make sure you have all the components of your application for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program? Follow a comprehensive checklist to ensure that your application is thorough, error-free, and aligned with Fulbright’s requirements. Learn how to compile and submit a well-organized application.

Register here: https://apply.iie.org/register/8.29.24.FUSP.ApplicantChecklist

I encourage you to attend. And also remember that Fulbright maintains an archive of previously recorded webinars focusing on individual application components, particular award types, and the like – all accessible at: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/resources/recorded-webinars

Remember also that we have folks waiting to be paired up with peer review partners. If you’re interested in getting another set of eyes on your application, take advantage of this opportunity!!

We are coordinating a Fulbright US Student Program statements & short answer peer partner program, where folks share drafts of their statements with others to offer feedback and suggestions. We will connect ETA applicants together (applying to different countries) and study/research/arts applicants together (working in different fields) to share drafts of their statements and short answers to offer feedback, suggestions, and insight one-on-one.

If you are interested in participating – both sharing your own statements and reading & offering feedback on another’s – please send me an email at uwfulbright@wisc.edu with your name, preferred email address, award type (and discipline if you are applying for study/research/arts), and country you are applying to. We are partnering folks on a rolling basis throughout the application cycle – so… this offer doesn’t expire!

Finally, if you haven’t yet, please send in your Attachments A&B. Deadline for those is 10am on Thursday, September 5, 2024. It’s the one thing that you will send directly to me here (everything else is handled within the application system). I’ll be pestering you again later this week but… why wait?

Keep working hard, stay cool, and let me know if I can be of any assistance!

The first day of class of the fall 2024 semester seems as good a time as ever to send our next check-in to those of you who have initiated applications for a 2025-2026 Fulbright US Student Program award through the UW-Madison. On or off campus, I hope you’re having a lovely day!!

Couple reminders to kick things off:

• Attachments A&B are due tomorrow, Thursday, September 5, 2024 by 10am! This is the one thing that you will send to my office directly. Everything else is handled through the online application portal.
• Interested in getting feedback on your statements and short answers? Sign up to be a part of our peer partner program – details at https://fulbright.wisc.edu/2024/09/04/fusp-peer-partner-program/
• Don’t neglect the headers in your statements!! Space is at a premium in your statement of grant purpose & personal statement but make sure that the headers on your pages follow the format laid out on the application components page of the appropriate award, whether you’re applying for an ETA, study/research, or arts award.

Now, a little more to consider as we approach the campus deadline (10am on Thursday, September 12, 2024) and subsequent review process (September 18-October 1, 2024):

• We don’t expect what is presented at the campus deadline to be the final version necessarily, but your application should be to a point where – if you weren’t able to work on it anymore between the campus and national deadlines – not only would you feel comfortable submitting it for consideration at the national deadline but you would feel like you had a great chance at getting the award.
• Encourage your recommenders to meet the campus deadline!! See my earlier guidance re: not having all of your recommendations in. You want to have as many in as possible and you should be guiding your recommenders to meet that deadline.
• Before the deadlines – both campus & national – I highly recommend you take a look at how your application is laid out and reads for your reviewers. You can do this by going to the “Review & Submit” tab and selecting the “Preview Application Proof” option. This will generate a pdf of your application and you’ll be able to see how your application appears, both in terms of the order the materials are presented and how the application is rendered by the system. Here you can double check for typos, whether portions of the short answers might have been clipped off because you used hard returns, etc. You can also read your application as your reviewers will and see how well it holds together as a piece. Highly recommended! Just make sure you don’t accidentally submit your application; preview only!
• Application preparation for the campus deadline is handled through the online portal by marking your application as “Ready for Campus Review” in the appropriate section on your application.
• Remember: the campus review process is not adversarial; rather it’s meant to get a critical but supportive set of eyes on your completed application prior to Fulbright’s review so that you can get some feedback on how well the application works as a whole, if there are suggestions for improving it, answer any questions you might have, and so that we can write as glowing and supportive a “campus committee evaluation form” as possible. Our job here, together with you, is to make Fulbright’s job as difficult as possible! We want each and every one of you to secure a Fulbright US Student Program award.

That’s it for now. I’ll connect again next week, a few days out from the campus deadline. I’m here to answer questions, offer feedback, and assist you in any way I can. You are not working alone on this!!

Less than 2 days out from the campus deadline – 10am, Thursday, September 12, 2024 – so we’re getting close to crunch time. Not a whole lot to do other than hopefully polish up written pieces, copy-edit and proofread your entire application, follow-up with recommendation writers, etc and then mark your application as “ready for campus review” – I’ll offer up a few reminders.

I have attached a pdf prepared by Fulbright entitled, “Ready for Campus Review: Instructions for Applicants” that walks you through the process.

I strongly encourage you to review all the prior check-ins posted on our UW-Madison Fulbright US Student Program page – https://fulbright.wisc.edu/fusp/ as well as the campus instructions (yes, again!!) – if you’re late coming into the process, haven’t been able to follow them as I’ve sent them over the last 2 months, etc. They all have good stuff included and in last week’s I detail how to generate a pdf of your application for your review. I cannot emphasize enough how important this can be in providing you with another “unfamiliar” version of your application to proofread AND see how it is presented to reviewers as they encounter your application as a whole.

As I’ve noted to many of you in conversation, if you’re missing a piece of your application, don’t lose sleep over it. Affiliation hasn’t come through yet? Still waiting on the transcript from that school you took some courses at 3 years ago? A letter of recommendation missing? It’s not the end of the world! You should, however, be doing all you can to be offering as complete and well put together an application as possible.

You should be putting forward an application that YOU are proud of; that reflects your best efforts. That’s what our campus review committee is brought together to help you accomplish. I ask that you respect the time and contribution of these campus reviewers by first and foremost respecting your own goals and efforts by sharing a Fulbright application that you are genuinely proud of, excited about, and confident in.

If you have questions, let me know! Regular drop-in hours are on offer tomorrow (11am-1pm; see below) or shoot me an email – that’s what I’m here for! I can’t, however, read any more drafts for the next few weeks – less than 24 hours isn’t time enough to read and review and once the review process kicks off, I’ll be knee deep in that.

Peer review opportunities remain on offer, though – https://fulbright.wisc.edu/2024/09/04/fusp-peer-partner-program/; and I am happy to offer feedback again in early October.

In the meantime, get things wrapped up and… get outside and enjoy some of this lovely weather!!